Network setup advice

[jseba]

Long time lurker here and finally registered!

I have a problem and I'd like to get some advice before I move forward too fast. I'm currently renting a house for my last year of school and, sadly, the wiring for the house is RJ-11. Right now, only my workstation and laptop are on the Internet via wireless (802.11N). However, I seem to have to no way of getting Internet to my small lab, which consists of a small HTPC and a Dell DCS6005. All run ESXi 5.5 and the HTPC is going to have pfSense or something installed for the virtual network.

I've come up with three options and I don't know which is the most optimal. First, the HTPC has a wireless NIC on it and I would use it as the WAN if I knew how to set up pfSense or something to use it. My quick attempt yielded nothing positive. This would be the simplest and would be fine for my needs at the moment.
The second is to get a used N router running DD-WRT to use as a bridge and gigabit switch (optional, but nice to have for vMotion and such) and use it as the uplink. Also would be fairly simple, but it would cost money, not that I'm cheap or anything, just would rather use what I have if possible.
The third would be to get a powerline adapter and run that between up to my switch and the router. Downsides are money and I'm not sure how the house is wired electrically.

I'd like to get the first option working and I could do it with a standard Linux install, but I'd rather not have to do everything manually all the time. If there is a router distribution that supports it, I'll use it. If not, I'm unsure which is the better option between 2 and 3.

 

[mervincm]

I would try the powerline approach. They are kind of a utility belt tool that's always gonna be handy if you are the type to have a home lab. I don't like Wireless bridges unless you are able to do so at frequencies that won't interefere with your WiFi devices.

 

[ehorn]

Perhaps you could Get a used multi port intel nic adapter and put in your esxi node. Then you only need to run ether from modem to esxi. All other services (router, etc.) can be run from dcs6005 and the uplinks from esxi can be used to connect to wap, htpc, other phy devices, etc..

Something like this:

4 NIC ports in a host would give you some good flexibility. You could run PFSense (or you favorite utm/router flavor) in a VM to manage your routes/firewall/dhcp/etc... and have uplinks to other physical devices including that wireless router (which would be re-purposed as an access point).

 

[HellDiverUK]

Powerline. It's come a long way in the past few years, so they're pretty reliable. I use a mix of Xenta and TPLink adapters, and they work perfectly. No faster than wifi, but much more reliable. I use pass-through ones, so I don't lose a socket.

 

[seang86s]

Do you have coax running thru the house? How about MoCA?

 

[jseba]

Powerline. It's come a long way in the past few years, so they're pretty reliable. I use a mix of Xenta and TPLink adapters, and they work perfectly. No faster than wifi, but much more reliable. I use pass-through ones, so I don't lose a socket.

Powerline is what I was leaning towards. Don't the connected sockets still have to be on the same circuit? And how is the bandwidth on them? We have a 100Mbit connection so wireless doesn't quite cut it all the time and it'd be nice to see that every once in a while.

Do you have coax running thru the house? How about MoCA?

Yup, there's coax in all the rooms. From a quick check on prices, that's quite a bit more than I was looking to spend, although it would probably work really well.

I took a second look at the phone lines running in the house and all the wiring is Cat5e, but it's on RJ-11 plugs. I have access to the junction box (it's labeled 'customer access point') and can easily reterminate them as RJ-45 and put a switch out there. Is there any downside to making custom cables using an RJ-45 connector on one end (for the computer) and RJ-11 on the other (to connect to the wall)? Obviously there would be the limitation of 100Mbit only, but I can live with that since the alternative is wireless and there's nothing happening on the network to require gigabit (my lab has a separate switch). That would leave the network looking something like this:

I have all the equipment (spare switch, RJ-11 connecters, Cat5e cable, crimper) so it would just be the time to setup, likely just a Saturday afternoon.

 

[mervincm]

Perhaps you could Get a used multi port intel nic adapter and put in your esxi node. Then you only need to run ether from modem to esxi. All other services (router, etc.) can be run from dcs6005 and the uplinks from esxi can be used to connect to wap, htpc, other phy devices, etc..

Something like this:

4 NIC ports in a host would give you some good flexibility. You could run PFSense (or you favorite utm/router flavor) in a VM to manage your routes/firewall/dhcp/etc... and have uplinks to other physical devices including that wireless router (which would be re-purposed as an access point).

This (multi wired ethernet ports on LAN side) is not easy as you can't configure multiple ports in ESXi as members of the same virtual switch unless they are designated as part of the same failover lagg group. the only way around it is to create a seperate virtual switch per port, then add then all to a single VM that routes or bridges between them. this requires significant CPU and is added latency.

 

[mervincm]

Powerline is what I was leaning towards. Don't the connected sockets still have to be on the same circuit? And how is the bandwidth on them? We have a 100Mbit connection so wireless doesn't quite cut it all the time and it'd be nice to see that every once in a while.


Yup, there's coax in all the rooms. From a quick check on prices, that's quite a bit more than I was looking to spend, although it would probably work really well.

I took a second look at the phone lines running in the house and all the wiring is Cat5e, but it's on RJ-11 plugs. I have access to the junction box (it's labeled 'customer access point') and can easily reterminate them as RJ-45 and put a switch out there. Is there any downside to making custom cables using an RJ-45 connector on one end (for the computer) and RJ-11 on the other (to connect to the wall)? Obviously there would be the limitation of 100Mbit only, but I can live with that since the alternative is wireless and there's nothing happening on the network to require gigabit (my lab has a separate switch). That would leave the network looking something like this:

I have all the equipment (spare switch, RJ-11 connecters, Cat5e cable, crimper) so it would just be the time to setup, likely just a Saturday afternoon.

Why would you not also re-terminate the RJ11's in each room to RJ45 females? Cat 5E from a central location to every room is the answer to all your problems, you just might need a few cheapo switches.

 

[jseba]

I'll probably do that. I'm just trying to do what I can with what I have in my box o' stuff with the least amount of purchasing and modifying the house since I'm renting. I think I do have some keystones so it may just be a few wall plates I need

 

[seang86s]

Agreed. Reterminate everything to RJ45. You can then get gigabit in all the rooms. A Trendnet 8 port green switch will probably work out nicely at the junction box. Cheap and low power consumption.

Keep all the RJ11 pieces. You can easily convert back once you decide to move.

 

[ehorn]

This (multi wired ethernet ports on LAN side) is not easy as you can't configure multiple ports in ESXi as members of the same virtual switch unless they are designated as part of the same failover lagg group. the only way around it is to create a seperate virtual switch per port, then add then all to a single VM that routes or bridges between them. this requires significant CPU and is added latency.

agreed... not as easy, flexible, performant as a phy switch on the uplinks.

OP has lots of options here.